Myklin Muse

Heavener Main Street Program

2008-10-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Small towns all face the same challenges - how do we keep our younger generations gainfully employed in our local communities so we can continue to offer what made us a good place to raise families in the first place.

Talk about balancing on a razor's edge! If we encourage the huge employers to set up shop we can also get the problems that can come along with transient populations - gangs, increased drugs and violent crimes and pressure on our schools and infrastructures. But, we can not expect to stay the same. Older businesses will close, some will move and if we do nothing, our small communities become empty spots on old maps. We will always need to find new businesses to be here in our small towns so they can have futures with us.

Main street programs help small communities to help themselves and Heavener is taking steps to ensure that it will continue to offer not just memories but also futures. Each meeting that I have been at so far has seen new faces who bring with them not just optimism, but some determination that we will have a future to offer.

The next meeting will be on October 20th at 6 P.M. at the Heavener schools. One reason we are meeting there is that we are growing out of the places we have been meeting - last Saturday's meeting ended up being standing room only!

You should be there. Every time just 1 person steps up to help make an area an better place - you do just that - you make it a better place.

Clicking on the title or here will show you a new resource for this area.

Join with us - this is your future and the future of your children that you can make happen.

Lower gas prices Mr. President?

2008-04-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

I received an email from John McCain today (as did many of you reading this). While I expect to vote for him in November, I still do not aggree with some of his ideas. In case you are wondering, I also subscribe to Clinton's and Obama's missives as well.

Here is a copy of my reply to Senator McCain.

"I oppose your plan to reduce Federal revenues by suspending gasoline taxes. The American people must learn that energy costs money. These attempts to delude the population into believing they can continue to enjoy artificially low costs will weaken our ability to compete in the world markets. Our grandchildren will pay the cost of these short-sighted programs. For the same reason, I oppose releasing strategic reserves.

As my future President, I insist you plan for the future of my children and grandchildren. Short-term fixes are not the answers to our problems.

Sincerely,

Michael Myklin"

I know that being willing to make a stand is unpopular - but this country can not continue to bankrupt our children's futures with short-term fixes that exist just to get someone elected.

Preparing Your Business

2007-08-10T03:56:00.000-07:00

When you begin to plan an Internet site to develop your business, it is just as important to spend time in the planning stages as you would for a storefront operation. I mention this because I have met several people this summer who made this mistake. Just because it is cheaper to start an online business than a main street, location does not make it less of a business.

You build successful businesses on the solid ground of research and planned implementation. Few shortcuts will allow you to ignore these necessary steps. Following a hunch or a feeling will usually lead you into a failure that costs you the resources you started with.

Fortunately, we have an excellent resource in this area that I encourage all potential owners to utilize. The Oklahoma Small Business Development Center located on the Carl Albert State College campus is a good place to het help with all your business needs. The OSBDC can help you avoid making costly mistakes and connect you with the information you need to make informed decisions.

Researching your market is just as important as deciding which shipper you will use for your order fulfillment. If you who missed the Women in Agriculture & Small Business Conference & Trade Show at the Bob Lee Kidd Community Center in June, you missed a very good business resource. One of the presenters was Jason Harvey with the Oklahoma Agriculture Enhancement & Diversification Program. The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture runs this and it is designed to help add value to agricultural products and increase revenues for rural Oklahoma. This program stresses research and planning to create new jobs in our communities. There are grants and loans available for feasibility studies, marketing and product development. There is an emphasis on creating new and innovative ways to market products.

The Internet is one way to market your product that may have lower start-up or overhead costs. A strong advantage is the ability to track very specific information about your potential customers and use this information to create new marketing strategies. It is possible to find out how much potential demand there is from Internet customers before you create a website and exactly which search terms they would use to find what you have to sell. This information can allow you to have a strong action plan built on research, not hunches or feelings. Once the website is operational, strong analytics programs can help you define future strategies by providing insights into what more you can do to turn visitors into customers.

(Mike Myklin is an author, speaker and ecommerce owner who can help your business get more value from the Internet. You can reach him at http://www.myklin.com/ where these articles are archived.)

Free Summer Programs for Bible Study

2007-05-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Every year I try to find a way to give something back to the communities that support us. The projects have been varied - we've donated furniture to help the victims of Katrina, worked with summer youth programs, done some litter pick-ups ...... the usual mix for anyone with a desire to help others.

This year I wanted to try and offer something more unique and with the potential of more impact. That can be a hard goal to reach but I think this may be it.

One of our websites (www.The-Log.net) is a commercial classroom provider. It provides the software and technical needs for people to teach online classes just like colleges and schools. We don't sell software or the actual course materials. We provide empty classes so companies can teach new employees or provide "in-service" training over the Internet using their own materials but on our servers. (We are a "hosted" solution.)

Here is this year's project. We will offer about 1000 student seats to anyone who wants to teach a Bible study class, or possibly a Scout group program, or any other "moral education" course that helps people improve their community. If your goal is to help people find a better way to live, we want to help you do this.

You will get all the usual testing and grading abilities just like a usual online school class and each teacher will be issued a unique"enrollment key" to give to their own students. We envisage this being used by youth pastors who need to develop their teaching skills, or by someone who wants to put together an online class for our troops stationed overseas, or maybe to help invalids who can reach the Internet.

We will consider any request for a free class that involves children's activities.

We will waive the usual teacher and student fees for our services. The classes will be empty; (you'll need to create the course materials yourself) but if you can use a computer to reach the Internet you can probably do this without much problem. Your free classes will be hosted through our servers 24/7 just like any paying customer. Your students will create their own free user accounts to login just as they would in school.

I invite you to pass our offer along to your local churches and civic organizations. My hope is to fill all 1000 student seats and help that many people find new strength in their lives. If the response becomes overwhelming, we will answer the requests on a "first-come" basis. Here is the website again: www.The-Log.net

Online Training Made Easy.

2007-04-19T03:43:00.000-07:00

Many companies must comply with regulations about what they tell their employees and how the information is taught. If mistakes are made, it sometimes helps to have very good records to show how you complied. Paper trails have become paperless but no less important when tracking the effectiveness of your training programs.

Some companies are moving to software programs that track training, individual participation and scores in neat packages that are easily archived for the future. In case that sounds familiar to you, that is a standard online class package used by schools around the world. The technology is a good way for companies to handle many of their training needs.

By using online training, a company can avoid the problems associated with scheduling. Training is often not a high priority and is commonly skimped in either time or attention. Many managers consider training an unavoidable interruption and expect employees to get it done as quickly as possible so they can return to activities that are more productive. This is particularly true when large numbers of key employees must be involved at the same time.

Rushed training classes commonly cause more interruptions as participants must contact the trainer for clarification after the class. People learn in different ways so a quick presentation in a rushed setting may cause problems with complicated materials or changes in procedures. The online class avoids scheduling problems and allows employees to attend training when it fits into their schedule. If they need more time with one part of the material, they can take the time they need to absorb the new information. An office will not be disrupted by losing large numbers of personnel to a class at the same time. Online training is a good way to conduct in-service training when your staff travels during the day.

You are not restricted to presenting printed material. It is common to include videos, audio tracks and links to other materials on the Internet. Another advantage is that you can track which of the materials have been viewed. Once the class has been completed, your participants can be tested and their grades recorded.

Instead of buying online class software, there are companies that rent them to you as a service and include the technical support they require. This is a good way for you to avoid the headaches associated with installation and upgrades. Costs are low enough that even mid-sized companies will often choose to out-source this part of their operations instead of adding it to their IT load.

These classes are used to teach new hires, train existing employees and show customers how to use new products. You can explore your options with free classes from companies like www.The-Log.net.

You can write to me at mike@myklin.com for assistance with your training class requirements.
(Mike Myklin is an author, speaker and ecommerce owner who can help your business get more value from the Internet. You can reach him at http://www.myklin.com/ where these articles are archived.)

How To Waste a Website

2007-03-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

This week I had to tell a local company their website was a waste of money. The designer they used had made almost every mistake possible in creating their website. If you want to avoid this disaster here are a few ideas to discuss with your designer.

When someone registers a domain name for you, be sure that you are listed as the owner. Your designer should be your administrative contact, not the owner of the name. It is very common for designers to claim ownership when registering client’s domain names. You often do not find out about this until you try to move your account somewhere else. You can check your ownership by looking up your domain registration with a free service like Domaintools.com.

Sometimes a designer will lock the domain, which means you cannot move it away from the listed servers without their permission. Locking a domain does make sense but there are better ways to protect your website without being held hostage.

Broadly speaking, the web is based on html code. All the pretty pictures, sounds and movies that you see are interpreted by programs that allow you to see the pages or hear the sounds. Websites can be designed using flash and this is a common way to create very engaging visitor experiences. However, before your visitors see your website, the search engines must be able to understand what you have.

The company website I mentioned had no html code that could be read by the search engines. The only way you found the site was to type the name exactly as it was registered. If you miss-spelled it by one letter you saw an error message without any prompts for the correct spelling. The search engines could not help you find it because there were no code definitions for them to read.

When you design a website, you must keep your market in mind as you decide what to content to include. If you sell to wholesalers, your website must include content that is useful for them. Different areas can be aimed at different users but visitors must be able to find relevant material quickly and have a compelling reason to want to do business with you.

Finally, a website should provide a way for you to understand what your visitors want. You must also include ways for you to continue the conversation with them after they have left. If you ignore the marketing aspects of the website and fail to offer value statements to your visitors, you are not getting much value for your money.

If you need help finding out who owns your domain name or have questions about your website, you can write to me at mike@myklin.com for assistance.

(Mike Myklin is an author, speaker and ecommerce owner who can help your business get more value from the Internet. You can reach him at www.Myklin.com where these articles are archived.)

Virus Protections

2007-03-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

This month my newsletter talked about how I manage to keep our business and home computers virus free. I do this using only 3 free programs widely available to anyone else. We open numerous emails and attachments every day since my email address is widely seen across several web sites. So far, we have not had a virus infect any of the machines.

A friend who takes my newsletter replied to me with a fourth method that I completely neglected to mention. She uses a Mac and sends her sympathy along for those of us who appear to be targets of opportunity.

Oh well, they too seem to have gathered some attention from the discontents of cyberspace. Until then I shall continue to write advice like that I sent out in this month's Myklin Muse Newsletter. You are welcome to get your own copy and correct my mistakes.

Oklahoma Sex Offenders

2007-01-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

As old as I am, I guess I am still an innocent when it comes to some aspects of human behaviour. My experience with finding sex offenders started when someone at a playground mentioned that a registered sex offender lived next door to them. They had found out when a police visit to the resident lead to his neighbors being questioned about him. What made them nervous was that he had been there for five months.

Until the police made a housecall they had no idea that he was a potential problem. It turns out that he had repeated his offenses on another vulnerable person and was subsequently jailed again. So these people were lucky that a predator had been removed from their neighborhood.

After hearing their story I decided to look at my own neighborhood but was thinking that I wouldn't find anyone I wasn't aware of already. Boy, was I wrong! There were over a dozen that I had never seen in our local newspaper. The reason was simple.

These criminals had committed their crimes in other areas and then moved to my neighborhood after their convictions. The ones that I found were the ones that had followed the law and registered with the local police. The state of Oklahoma says that over 14% of the people convicted do not register and some states (like Nevada) report much higher lost criminals.

Even a state with a low population density (like Oklahoma) has over 6000 registered sex offenders and a list of over 850 missing sex offenders.

This is why we started the notification service for people who want to know when a sex offender moves into their neighborhood. No one bothers to keep up with the sex offenders who move around. The police may know but they are not going to tell you unless they want to know something.

This situation was brought to mind this week for me because in my local newspaper there were two different people found guilty of not registering as sex offenders with the local police. I live in Leflore County, Oklahoma. It's a small county with a low population and we had two criminals hiding here. I wonder what it would be like for an area like Tulsa that has over a thousand registered sex offenders.

If you are interested in keeping your loved ones safe you can find out from us who is moving into your neighborhood. Our service is free and it will take you just a few minutes to get the information. Here's the website: http://www.Be-warned.net

Ready for a new year.

2006-12-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

I have been preparing for the new year while recovering from my own holiday excesses. The computer and I are both on diets again starting today. After rereading my own advice I reduced the size of my inbox by relegating all the extra emails to their correct folders and deleting the rest. It is a pity we can’t do the same thing with our own inboxes and file storage devices.

In a few weeks you will start to see numerous offers for new and exciting ways to get rich using the Internet. Some advertisers have not waited but already have their promotions on TV.
When I started writing these articles I said you must create a product or deliver a service that has value to someone else. These are the only two ways to really make money with or without the Internet. The third and more common way is to help people delude themselves into believing that the computer is something akin to a money machine. I do not buy into the get-rich-quick schemes and neither do my readers.

People who read my column tend to be a savvy group. We do not believe in the tooth fairy, Easter bunny or Santa except as ways to humor children. As a group we do not expect the world to support us without any effort on our part. Many of you own a business or have a very responsible position in a larger business. Most readers are male but the percentage of females has increased over the past year. When I surveyed everyone this year the income figures showed a better than average level with many of you over the median figures for the country as a whole.

It was not a surprise when I considered the type of questions that get sent to me. A common question is how these marketers make money if their services are free. One way is for the websites to collect an affiliate fee from companies they promote. When you pay for a product you find through the free services they will get a commission. There is nothing unethical about promoting another business as long as you are open about it. I receive affiliate checks every month from a couple of programs I use myself. Since I am a customer I can say that the products are good or I would not use them. I wonder if the other promoters can say the same thing.

Another trait shared by many of my readers is the expectation that you can see real results from using a product or service. The usual disclaimer that “results are not typical” or that “income can not be guaranteed” that gets shown quickly in fine print is the way out for companies that want to play the numbers game. You and I both know that real success comes from people who are willing to work for it.

I have added an email newsletter to my writing schedule for next year. I plan on providing more detail about various parts of the Internet and how you can use them in your life. If you fit the profile of my readers you should get a copy for yourself at my website. You can always suggest topics you want to see covered or just ask questions. Have a Happy New Year!

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer and Internet business owner specializing in Internet Marketing. You may contact him via email to mike@myklin.com or contact him through www.myklin.com where you will find these and other articles available for your research.

Google Maps Click to Call

2006-12-04T03:06:00.000-08:00

Google has released a new local search tool that will benefit any business; even the ones that do not have a web site. You can find the feature in Google Maps when you are looking at local businesses.

If you enter a search term for a hotel in our zip code, beside each listing you will find options for “more information”, “reviews”, and “call” as well as the street address and phone number. Clicking on the name of the listing will move the map to the location of the business and display more information such as their web site address if they have one.

The newest feature here is the “call” button. If you click on this button, you will get a new screen that invites you to enter your phone number. Beside this you will see an offer to “connect for free”. When you enter your phone number Google will place the call to the business for you.

For now, this service is free including long-distance charges. Google is paying whatever fees may be involved with the exception of your cell phone airtime fees. In Google’s own words, “Google pays for all calls, both local and long-distance. However, if you give us a mobile phone number, the normal airtime fees or other fees charged by your phone provider may apply.” A person in Utah can make a local call to your business in Poteau without you having an 800 number.

This is an example of what I described in earlier articles when I talked about click to call search marketing. Even without a web site most businesses can use the power of the Internet to help improve their sales and customer contacts. Other companies offer to just deliver your business listing during your normal hours of operation.

What can this mean for you as a business? Even if you have not put your business on the Internet it is possible for you to benefit from what people do there. What you should be doing right now is making sure your business listing is correct and up to date. I found several old listings for our local businesses just in the hotel search returns. Google does provide a way for businesses to update their information so you should take advantage of this as soon as possible. If you need help you may contact me for assistance.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer and Internet business owner specializing in Internet Marketing. You may contact him via email to mike@myklin.com or contact him through www.myklin.com where you will find these and other articles available for your research.

Hire a SEO for Minimum Wage

2006-11-02T03:47:00.000-08:00

The question for you today is:

"Can you afford to hire one person and just pay them minimum wage?"

If your answer is, "Yes", you are on your way to getting the best deal you will ever find for Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing.

Imagine hiring someone who can do all this for you:

design a website that attracts the attention of the Search Engines,
optimize your pages around the correct search engine terms so you get the results you want from the search engine result pages (SERPs),
collect opt-in e-mail addresses and manage the lists in full compliance with CAN-SPAM,
write powerful copy for your bulletins and newsletters,
manage the product listings on your website,
develop and manage adsense/banner advertising revenues from your website,
track and analyze your website traffic with a full slate of metric tools,
and shows you Top 5 SERP's (with millions of competing pages) as part of their interview!

Now, we are not talking about some fresh-faced innocent who has never had to meet payroll, or pay taxes, or who thinks all the credit card offers are still a good thing.

We are talking about the skills sets of adults who:

have been in business,
have met payroll for over 40 full-time employees plus seasonal help,
have worked in resorts, manufacturing and retail sales,
have sold alternative energy systems,
have worked in education,
have served in the military,
have raised a family,
still believe in local community,
and have faced and overcome defeats and set-backs in business plans.

Let's be honest, no matter how good the plan looks on paper, it can still bomb in the field. And it's what you do to overcome these defeats that separates the successful businesses from everyone else who gives up at the first set-back.

Our Minimum Wage SEO doesn't need a desk, or a computer, or want vacation time. This "person" gives you all the advantages of a trained team without the costs of hiring them all individually.

So really, our headline should be, "Hire a SEO for Under Minimum Wage".

This full service package gives you access to all our research, business resources, talent and training. We constantly monitor the Internet for your benefit.

Pricing for the Minimum Wage SEO - the same as hiring a single, untrained, barely housebroken, high school dropout.

Which one would you rather have?

Contact me today mike@myklin.com

Good Search Marketer Characteristics

2006-10-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

There's no secret to the fact that if you can get links from other web pages to yours, you will see an increase in traffic. There are numerous products available that claim to help you accomplish this goal. Sometimes you can get the links with some basic skills often overlooked in today's service oriented market.

How about this one? Saying something nice about a group of people as a whole.

That is what Rob Garner did when he wrote about our professional characteristics. I am sharing an excerpt from his column and a link so you can read it in it's entirety. Mr. Garner's views are very complimentary and I would largely agree with him (what a surprise!).

"Characteristics of good search people

Good search marketers are a special breed and in very high demand. While there may currently be a shortage, this new breed of practitioners possess a few key characteristics that you should look for, or help develop, within an existing agency or in-house search team.

Ability to think globally and objectively. Good search marketing people can see and understand the universe of search elements, and make decisions on how one might impact the other. This includes paid and natural dynamics, Web sites, analytics and an understanding of a company's business.

Ability to think analytically. Search marketing people are always asking '"how?" and "why?" If we outsource these key questions to technology alone, dollars are lost and overall campaign performance suffers. Examples of these questions may include "How are natural algorithmic changes impacting sales?", "How are they affecting complementary paid search campaigns?" and "Why are current search conversions differing from previous historic trends?"

Ability to think creatively. Thinking creatively not only addresses the "how" and the "why," but also helps to solve problems, create efficiency and formulate strategies to address the ever-changing search landscape. The creativity of people reveals itself in strategy, reporting, keyword research, technical solutions, team communication and many other areas.

Does not shy away from tough problems. Fortitude is an essential element in the holistic mindset. Good search people are constantly refining data and applying insight to create efficiency. They also adjust to the daily changes in the search landscape.
Diversity of background. Some of the greatest search observations have come from people with diverse backgrounds not related to search. I have been influenced by people who have applied their backgrounds in law, investment brokerage, public relations, music, art, language and psychology.

Accepts that search is not perfect. The holistic search marketer is constantly adapting, and accepts change as a part of the business. If you truly believe that search is simple and perfect, then you're not looking hard enough for areas of improvement.
Has an appetite for instruction. Also at the top of the list of characteristics for successful search engine marketers is a voracious appetite for knowledge about search. These folks don't begrudge time spent attending seminars, reading books, testing out concepts, and reading the daily news, blogs and newsletters. Instead, they seek out such experiences."

Here is the article in full:
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseactionfiltered=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=50279

Now, he and I have never met and we could be considered competitors in some regards, but he has now received a link from my resources to his which will help him in the Search Engines. At this point, this is a one-way link because there is no reciprocal link from him to me. This link will weigh slightly more in the algorithms of the various Search Engines because there is no back link to me.

Perhaps this will change. We all monitor to see where we are visible on the Web. Perhaps I will gain a link from one of his resources in the future that will help my claims for relevance. Even if I do not, I have still gained because I had some good content to share with you today and an opportunity to demonstrate that multiple approaches to advertising can be successfully completed with a little imagination.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-commerce owner who specializes in Internet Marketing. He can be reached through mike@myklin.com and http://www.myklin.com where you can find archives of these articles.

Provide Services - Not Websites

2006-10-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ask people what they think the Internet is made of and I would bet most of them would answer, “websites”. It’s a natural answer and it shows how most people look at the electronic world. I have a different answer to offer you today.

For me, the Internet is a place where services are performed. Even if what I am looking for is a new shirt, what I am looking for is someone to offer me the convenience of a low price, a selection I can not find locally and delivery to my home. Notice that I am not looking for a product. I am looking for a product plus a price plus a service that will satisfy my needs.

An interesting statistic that came out of AOL’s release of anonymous search data earlier this year was that 47 per cent of the searchers did not click on any of the search results that were offered to them. Almost half the people did not find what they were looking for when they searched the Internet. I argue that the reason is most websites try to sell you a product when you go searching to satisfy a need. The product they want to sell you is what they can make a profit with rather than what will satisfy your needs.

A website that concentrates on the product will continue to lose out in the market place. As we become more comfortable finding what we want on the Internet our standards and expectations are also rising. It is like having a car as a young person. We were ecstatic with a basic model when we didn’t have anything. As we get older we expect more from our vehicles and the companies who sell them to us. The car advertisers sell us on benefits not the products. We are offered excitement, adventure and style; not Fords, Chevys, and Toyotas. These are the products they sell to us to satisfy our needs.

While there is a place for high end services there is also a place for good value services that don’t try to wring every last penny from a transaction. The Internet allows you to show people how your services can satisfy their needs. If you concentrate on how you can make someone’s life better you will be more successful. Let me give you an example.

I recently worked with a company who was trying to reduce their fuel costs by making their fleet routes more efficient. We needed to know where the trucks were going and how much time was spent traveling in congested areas. The quick answer was to use some GPS tracking products that would tell the dispatcher each truck’s location.

When the company went searching for information on how to do this they ran into several companies who sell real-time tracking systems. These can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars plus monthly fees for connections to networks. This was outside their budget and someone referred them to me. I suggested they use some passive GPS devices that would just store the data until it could be manually downloaded at the end of the day or week. Prices for this are much lower and it brings this into the realm of good business research. I concentrated on their needs, not on what I wanted to sell them. This is a good key to website success and one that is often overlooked by website designers. Remember the maxim, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-commerce owner who specializes in Internet Marketing. He can be reached through mike@myklin.com and www.myklin.com where you can find archives of these articles.

Free Online Classes from The-Log.net

2006-09-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

Teaching an online class just became easier with free resources from The-Log.net. The FREE services offered can be used to design and teach your own classes to your students for no charge.

Businesses can use the services to train newly hired employees and conduct in-service training wherever there is an Internet connection.

Schools can conduct lower cost distance learning classes without the high cost of licensed programs. This is a fully functional and robust system you can personalize to your needs.

The service is FREE for the asking!

The #1 Affiliate Marketing Mistake

2006-09-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to get started on the Internet and no few people will try Affiliate Marketing at some point in their journey. The attractions of this model make it an easy sell to novices. You just put some code on your page and visitors will follow the link to where an experienced company makes the sale for you and sends you a check.

Sounds like easy money, right? Well, if it was that easy wouldn't ALL the people wanting big money just be affiliates?

If the model was that profitable, why would people bother to create businesses of their own? Why not just promote established products?

Okay, so for most people who try to be Affiliate Marketers, the rewards are slender and not what they were hoping to see. Do their experiences make Affiliate Marketing a bad business model? Is this just a waste of time?

No. Affiliate Marketing can be a profitable way to make some money if you are willing to work at it just a little bit. The biggest mistake most people make is in not promoting their affiliate links the right way.

If all you do is put some link code on your page you are throwing away the visitors you have worked hard to find.

What should you do instead? If you are seriously interested in correcting this problem I have the answer for you. And I'll tell you for free. Here's the link.
http://www.myklin.com/affilate-mistakes.html

Where do the sex offenders live?

2006-09-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered just where someone who is convicted of a sexual crime ends up living after they spend their time in jail (if they do jail time, of course). It would be nice to think they have specially watched accommodations somewhere they can't get into more trouble. Unfortunately, this isn't a story, it's real life and the sad truth is they are likely to move into your neighborhood before you realize they are there.

Although there are laws that say we are allowed to know when a sex offender lives in our neighborhoods, there aren't any rules that say the offender has to come up and introduce themselves to you so you'll know who they are. Yes, they must report themselves to the police but that's as far as it goes.

It's up to you to keep yourself aware of these added risks to your neighborhood's safety.

There is a free service that will tell you about the sex offenders who live near you. The website is www.Be-Warned.net.

Missing Steve Irwin

2006-09-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Some events in the world can leave us a little speechless at times. I had been unable to say what Steve's passing had meant to me (even though I'd never met him in person). Fortunately for me, a friend sent me this wonderful letter and expressed much that I was unable to articulate.

Thank you, Corina, for saying what I not been able to. Here are her words,

"In Memory of Steve Irwin 1962-2006

Steve Irwin came into our lives in a big way only ten years ago. Although he'd spent his whole life absorbed in an all-out mission to save the planet's wildlife, he became a world-wide television icon around 1996.

The Crocodile Hunter died doing what he loved. Irwin was known for pushing the envelope to the extreme in his wildlife documentaries. On September 3, his enthusiasm and exuberance lead him into the path of a sting ray. In an instant, Steve met his end. He was struck with the large ray's poisonous barb. It pierced through his rib cage and into his heart. In mere moments, he was gone.

Certainly no one who had watched this man risk life and limb on a daily basis could have been surprised if he was injured, even seriously, in filming a documentary or in presenting some giant, dangerous wild animal to the public. His comfort level with truly deadly creatures was far greater than most people's. His grasp of an animal's temperament and mood were uncanny.Even armed with this innate awareness, however, Irwin must have had more than his fair share of close calls and near misses; probably more than any of us will ever witness.

Irwin never advised the rest of us to take the chances he did. What he did (thrilling audiences world-wide on a weekly basis) he did for two reasons. First and foremost, he risked his own life to save the lives of animals. Second, and just as important, he did it in a very important, public way, bringing the rest of us into the animal world in a fashion we would never, thankfully, experience without him.

Steve's theory was simple. He wanted to spread his infectious love for wildlife and his understanding of the natural world to the rest of us, so that we, in turn, would value and protect it. It was his singular mission in life. It is, ultimately, the mission he died for.

Irwin's enthusiasm was incredible, and contagious. He was more than a television personality, more than a fang wrangler. He was personable, passionate, engaging. You didn't have to be from Australia to identify with him. In time you would come to love his peculiar way with words, his genuine accent, his bobbing eyebrows, his infectious smile. He was incapable of speaking in a monotone, even when he tried to whisper. His eyes were forever alive with the possibility of a new adventure.

I never met Steve Irwin. When his passing was announced Monday morning, I felt as though I had lost a close and personal friend. I am probably not alone in this sentiment. Steve didn't leave any of us out of his myriad journeys. He brought us into the heart and home of his family and his life's work. He looked directly into the camera as though he was speaking one to one with each and every one of us. Steve was not reserved or polite about requesting our attention. He was on a mission, and he wanted us all to understand how urgent it was, and how vital our own participation in preserving the natural world really is. He spoke in plain language, and he spoke to all of us.

The world has lost one of its best known and most passionate conservationists. But even as I mourn his loss, I can almost feel his presence. What can we possibly do to offer this man a fitting memorial?We have to stand up, and take the place he left so suddenly. If Steve could speak to us now, I don't think his message would be any different than it has been throughout his brief lifetime. He would ask us to stand up for animals; to protect their habitats, to petition our governments to create and maintain sanctuaries for wildlife. He would urge us to push for tougher laws against animal cruelty and the sale of wild animals. He would passionately encourage us to do all that we can to protect and preserve this precious planet and all of its inhabitants. And I think he would tell us to love and cherish our families, and share our love for nature with them.

Steve Irwin was one of the most important conservationists of our era. He gave everything he had to bring the natural world to our attention. Let us honor his legacy with more than words. Let us honor his lifelong contribution with effort and attention of our own. Not one among us may possess his charisma, but we are all capable of dedicating time and effort toward preserving and protecting the natural world; our world, the only world we have."

Corina Roberts
FounderRedbird
P.O. Box 702, Simi Valley, CA 93062
www.RedbirdsVision.org

What classes should I take for Internet success?

2006-08-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

A reader wrote to ask, “Which classes should my high school and college age children be taking to get an advantage in today’s Internet intensive business world? I know that good computer skills are critical for many jobs.” My answer may surprise you as it did her.

If you want to have an edge over your coworkers, you should be taking every English class you can find. The best jobs with the best benefits are going to individuals who can communicate correctly. The writing skills we learn are critical to many other parts of our lives. If you can write clearly, the chances are that you can think problems through from different views. This is a core skill for most high paid occupations.

With the ability to write and speak clearly you will approach more situations with confidence. The feeling that you can solve a problem is the first step in solving it. Understanding what someone is saying to you is critical to your ability to work in a team effectively and other people will turn to you for help because you will be able to find more solutions. These are the traits shared by supervisors, managers, and team leaders.

While many of our tasks are completed alone, much of our day is spent in a team environment. Your ability to write clear messages or talk well in small groups will improve your team’s results and bring you to the attention of the top echelon decision makers. These people know that clear communication skills are rarely found in younger employees and watch carefully for the few bright sparks that are capable of handling more responsibilities. This is the track to faster promotions with higher pay.

As we can tell from SAT scores and the number of remedial English classes offered by colleges, most people get through high school with the bare minimum training available to them. In general, English classes are something that we suffer through instead of realizing that our language skills will be critical to our employment possibilities. By the time we do realize why someone else was promoted ahead of us, there is a new crop of younger employees competing for the better jobs.

These skills will also help you in your computer classes. You will understand when you are told that web pages get better SEO ranking when written with proper grammar. Your conversion rates will also improve when you can write effective sales copy. As a programmer, you will be able to utilize the higher languages with fewer mistakes and less time spent debugging. All of these are high paid skills in today’s job marketplace.

The ability to write and speak well will determine your lifetime earnings. If you want to make more money, enjoy more recreation, have better toys, and enjoy what you do, get back to school and take the English classes you have missed. If reading is not a part of your day, your next promotion will go to the person who has made it part of theirs.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-business owner who specializes in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. You can write to him at mike@myklin.com. We archive these articles at www.myklin.com.

Social Networking by Internet

2006-08-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Unless you are in college, it is unlikely you have met the social networking website Facebook yet. According to a recent Time® magazine article, it is only just less popular than Google for the amount traffic it receives.

Social networking sites have the most explosive growth of any Internet sites. Driven by young people who use the services to maintain contact with their friends, they can have thousands of visitors an hour using mostly free services.

Facebook requires you to register an email address connected with a college, university or some high schools. Some Oklahoma institutions including Carl Albert State College are now included in their network. Facebook requires the institutions to register in an attempt to create a safer environment for members. Other online networking sites have had many warnings issued about them for their open approach to membership.

Members can upload a lot of information about themselves at all the websites. Interest groups and location finders are common along with the chat rooms and message boards. The whole purpose is to have members connecting easily with people from down the road and around the world. Once you are in the network, it is also easy to add your current information when you move to a new area. CASC students who were already Facebook members from other places could quickly add their existing member information to the CASC network.

What may not be as obvious is the opportunity to reach these groups as an advertiser. All the websites accept advertising. If your product is youth oriented this can be a lucrative area for you to spend some advertising dollars. Not all companies compete in the same places and there may be hidden opportunities for yours.

In the same way, Google is not the only search engine. There are millions of searchers using specialty search services where your pay per click costs can still be in the five to ten cent range. That can mean true advertising values when compared with dollars per click in the crowded pages of Google. This becomes particularly important when you compare the demographics of users. If you sell to twenty year olds, why advertise where the forty-five year olds congregate?

Internet marketing is about finding your edge in an increasingly complex medium. There are many ways to use it to your advantage and to find customers your competition does not serve.
Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-business owner who specializes in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. This article is archived at www.myklin.com.

Native American Elder Care - Redbird Ranch

2006-08-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

As our population grows older we are finding the weaknesses in the systems that we thought would be caring for our elderly. A large part of the problem is that there is little effort being given to caring for elderly in a culturally appropriate way.

I ran into this problem several years ago when I was trying to help a friend find a long term care facility for her father. He had been a farmer all his long life, living on a remote farm with few neighbors within 5 miles of his home. Virtually all the facilities she could find were in an urban setting with all the city noises that come along with this location. The staff had no experience with what he had been doing and little interest in what his life's goal's had been.

We finally found a small facility who's residents shared some of his experiences and understood his need for solitude as well as social activities. A man who had sunk into himself at the prospect of living in the crowded city environment became alert and much more like his normal self.

This week I found an organization who is trying to address these issues themselves. They have started the process of creating suitable space for Native American elderly and I think just as important, formalized a model for others who want to do the same thing. Here's a quote from their website,

"Redbird Ranch will be a four to six unit transitional and elder housing facility, in Ventura or Los Angeles County. Redbird Ranch will provide a supportive and sensitive atmosphere, offering peace and dignity to elders and their families, and hope for those facing times of personal crisis and change.

Many people face their own senior years without adequate means to care for themselves. Others are given a responsibility they are not prepared for when elders in their family need care. Redbird wants to approach this issue on a very small scale compared to the scope of the problem, with a four to six unit housing complex for the elderly and their care-giving families."

I encourage you to visit their site where you'll also find an intriguing book, The Wisdom Walkers, by writer Corina Roberts.

Google Alerts

2006-07-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Google has made many free services available to the public. The Google Search function is undoubtedly the best known but there are several others that you could be using in your everyday life.

A friend and I were looking at Google Earth together when it first became available. This program allows you a very detailed bird’s eye view of the world from the comfort of your computer chair. Some areas are much clearer than others and you can zoom in or out plus rotating your view. It’s an interesting way to look at our world.

Google does not discuss their sources very much but there is an aging factor to consider. My house (in eastern Oklahoma) was fuzzy and difficult to see clearly. My friend’s old house in Texas was crystal clear and we were able to see his car in the driveway. He had moved from there about two years ago so the view wasn’t current. As much as this program has been touted to agencies who want to market an area and use Google Earth as a selling resource, this should be considered. And from a buyer’s perspective, you might want to remember that the view may not be current when an agent uses it to show the area’s development. The paid version of this service may be more up to date than this free version.

The program you may want to start using for yourself regularly is the Google Alerts. This program will send you a once daily digest of web pages that have been created about whatever topic you chose. I was using it to keep me posted about the new Google Checkout payment service (I’ll discuss that in an upcoming Muse). Every day I would be told where new articles had been created as companies around the world shared their views and experiences about the new way to pay on-line.

This isn’t just for businesses, though. You could easily set up an Alert about any topic that you want to know more about. It is very easy to set up and delete or change the Alerts you want to see. Unlike some other alerting systems I’ve tried, this one is clean and doesn’t inundate your inbox with excess mail. You could set up alerts about your favorite personality, sports team, news item, fishing destination, vacation destination, your company or even your school. In this day of information overload, this may be one of the best free services you can find.

Put Your Visitors in the Driver's Seat

2006-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

I was visiting a school office where the staff was desperately trying to find a driver for an upcoming bus trip. They had called most of their possible names and kept being turned down. The conversation was predictable, “Hi, can you drive a bus for us on Thursday? No? Thanks anyway.”

I stopped them before they made the next call. Their problem was they were focused on what they needed (a bus driver) and not why someone should agree to drive for them. They were forgetting their “unique proposition” or what was good about the situation for the driver.

They were using a brand new tour bus for this trip, not a typical school bus. There’s a lot of difference and that by itself could help them out of their predicament. I suggested the following conversation starter on the next call.

“Hi, we’ve got a new bus with a Caterpiller 300 horse-power turbo diesel and an Allison World 5 speed Automatic Transmission. The bus has an air-ride cloth driver’s seat, boosted a/c, arm rests, movable pedals, remote mirrors and cruise control. Could you drive this for us on Thursday’s trip?”

The next person they called said yes. Actually, he said yes loudly enough for me to hear from several feet away. This time they gave the driver a good reason to say yes. Most bus drivers don’t see this type of rig unless they drive for a tour company.

A lot of businesses do the same thing with their products and services. They just plop them out there with a semi-bashful approach, “Here it is and here’s how much it’ll cost.” They are relying on the customers to attach their own value to the offering without showing them how it will better their lives. This is a poor sales technique and results in many missed opportunities.

Most people, myself included, like to be shown exactly what benefits your products will give me. The power of the Internet is that you can show your potential customers exactly what they can expect. One of the most effective commercials I ever saw was shown from the driver’s seat of a car. All you could see was the twisting road ahead and hear the motor aggressively moving the vehicle through the gearbox. It was a white knuckle ride and worthy of the high price tag this Italian car demands.

Use the Internet to let your customers feel what difference you can make in their lives. This is an area where you can literally put them in the driver’s seat of your products and feel what they are missing.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-commerce owner who specializes in Internet Marketing. He can be reached through www.myklin.com where you can find archives of these articles.

Email Techniques

2006-06-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was asked how I manage the flood of e-mails I receive every day. With my e-mail addresses in plain site across many web sites, I am routinely bombarded with SPAM. Even after my bulk filters trap a lot of the unwanted contacts, I still have quite a few to open and respond to appropriately.

The trick to good e-mail management is to never treat your inbox as a storage area. Your inbox should only hold the items that are on today’s “to-do” list. Everything else should be filed away after you have taken whatever action was needed. The more messages you have in your inbox files, the less you will get accomplished.

Many of us get the FYI type messages from people who want us to know where they are in some common endeavor. Committee meeting notes are routinely distributed to everyone as are notices about articles someone thinks we should read. I subscribe to several electronic newsletters and get several issues a week and this doesn’t include the personal messages from friends and relatives.

The e-mail clutter that most accounts hold comes from the ever increasing storage limits that are provided with most free services. A typical inbox storage size has reached 2 GB which is simply monstrous considering it’s supposed to be only for new mail.

What this has done to most people is slow down their productivity. With huge limits they see no reason to move anything to another location. The down side to this is trying to find something you want to use. Instead of it being put away in a designated spot for easy retrieval, it will be mixed in with the hodge-podge of other incomplete tasks. This is a recipe for disaster. Your attention can be diverted by any number of items you look at while trying to find the one item that was important to you when you started the search.

Consider your e-mail inbox to be your desk. If you just pile items on top of each other as they come to you, the chances are that you’ll accomplish very little and that only with great effort. If, on the other hand, your desk is kept tidy, it will be ready for your task at hand without distractions. As e-mails arrive, deal with them and then file them away in properly divided folders. With most programs you can designate e-mails from particular addresses to be delivered directly to the folder instead of your inbox. This is the system I use for much of my correspondence. Some folders capture new messages according to the subject line or another equally unique item.

Take a day to empty your existing inbox and then rigorously defend its right to be virtually empty. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to handle your correspondence when you don’t have the weight of yesterday's business hanging over your desk.

Mike Myklin is an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. This article is archived at www.myklin.com

Drug Education Program for Children

2006-05-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

You can help protect your children from the messages the drug dealers are sending with your own, personalized anti-drug messages.

A new, personalized drug education program for children is now available from www.Drug-Message.com. The unique system delivers messages to children in 4th to 12th grades.

Each individual message is:

short,
age appropriate,
gender appropriate,
addresses each child by name,
and has links to other web sites.

Instead of relying on children finding the warnings we want them to hear, this service delivers a constant trickle of information directly to the child. The children are encouraged to read the messages with chances to win cash and other prizes in random drawings.

Much more free (no obligation) information can be in your hands in moments. Visit: www.drug-message.com.

There are separate plans for

families,
groups,
and even communities who want to reach a wide area. Community plans can run "cost free" and even provide income streams to support your other programs.

Affiliate Programs

2006-04-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

A common way for many people to get started with an Internet business is to join a company’s affiliate program. In the simplest terms, you show people where to find the company products and get a commission when they buy. On the Internet, there are more ways for you to get paid but that’s the basic idea.

Affiliate programs can be a good way to learn the basics of Internet marketing and even supplement your income when you start to get things right. The most common way to be an affiliate is to put another company’s advertising (unique banners and text ads) on your web pages. When your visitor clicks on the link the ads provide they are taken to the website of the other company. You can get credit for the “click” or their system will just track which affiliate the customer came from so you get a payment when the customer makes a purchase.

Most affiliate programs rely on cookies to remember who sent which customer. As more people routinely remove cookies at the end of each online session other ways of tracking sales have been developed. My own affiliate program uses unique coupon codes so that people can refer customers even without a computer to hand. This system is much more labor intensive but I feel it gives a better tracking method for my affiliates.

All the affiliate programs I know pay a check when your sales commissions hit a minimum level of about $50. It’s possible for you to have several programs owing you hundreds of dollars but individually they have not met the minimum payment levels. This is one of the reasons that it can be better to concentrate on promoting one product line instead of several different vendors.

The more successful affiliates don’t just rely on the other company’s sales copy to convince you to buy the products. It’s more effective if you also use descriptions and some selling techniques on your own page before you send the visitor to the other company. Be sure your affiliate program allows you this freedom and work carefully within their guidelines.

If a program expects you to pay some fees and talks mostly about your share of someone else’s membership fees, I think you’ve crossed the line from affiliate to potential pyramid scheme. Obviously it will depend on the program but watch the wording in any agreement and try to discover exactly how others have made money with the company. If most incomes come from getting other people to join the program instead of selling real products or services, then you may be at the bottom of a very long line when it comes to making money for yourself.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-business owner. He provides advice and guidance for people and companies who want to expand their operations to the Internet. These articles, including archived materials, can be found at http://www.myklin.com/

Organic Search vs. PPC

2006-03-31T17:55:00.000-08:00

When using a search engine you get two kinds of results on each page. The organic results are in the list of web pages surrounded by the paid advertising results. Usually, the paid results are listed according to how much each advertiser will pay when you click on their product’s link. The more they are willing to pay the closer to the top you will find their ads. Sometimes what they have paid for is what you are already seeing, then it has called a PPM or pay per impression campaign.

I searched for some cheap airline tickets recently. The results I got were almost a textbook version of online advertising techniques. The top 5-7 organic web pages were also the top paid ads. There was a lot of repetition, which shows just how dominant a few companies are in this particular industry.

The question to ask here is why a company that gets the top organic results (which are free) would also spend the money to have their PPC ads on the same page. At first glance, it would seem to be a waste of money. According to Yahoo, clicks for “cheap airline tickets” should cost you over $1.10 each. That is cheaper than a simpler, “cheap tickets” which will cost over $2.15 per click. These prices must be paid whether or not they make a sale when someone clicks-through to their website. By the way, if you think these are high, the prices are really bargain basement compared to some other industries. When I was researching for a CPA client, I found several search terms that cost $8-$10 per click.

The answer has to do with a desire to be market dominant. If all you see are results from a couple of companies the chances are you won’t be doing business with someone else. A second reason is the edge that repetition gives to one company. If you combine a strong advertising campaign in TV, newspapers, magazines and radios with an equally strong Internet focus your common message will tend to dominate. You could probably name the few companies that came up in my search without much trouble if you watch much TV or read magazines regularly.

Another reason to use organic website design is to determine how many visitors it takes for you to make a sale. If you know that it takes 50 visitors to get one sale then you also know what you can afford to pay in PPC charges. High PPC costs do not need to be a deterrent to you using an online marketing plan. The per-item cost of your product and the amount of advertising cost per-item gives you the broad range of what you can afford to find a potential customer.

This is a very simple approach to marketing and ignores that most sales are made after someone visits the website 5-7 times. However, it is a good place to start from to create new demand for your goods and services.

Mile Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-business owner who specializes in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization.

Maintained Website Services - New Year, New Internet

2006-01-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

The past year has seen much positioning by various companies to ensure their products will be the ones you choose for your Internet experiences. The battles over the platform for the new DVD format was very similar to what we saw when Beta was battling VHS to become the standard for VCRs. Even though Beta was considered to be the better technical product it lost the battle for market share. This year’s battle is interesting because we have Microsoft on one side and many of the major studios on the other.

One common trend from all the products that came out of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was convergence. The really hot items are those that allow you to do more with fewer gadgets. These small units combine cell phones with PDA’s, include Internet browsers for searches, play games, send text messages, provide GPS location services, take pictures, send pictures, all while playing your favorite music that you can get for 99 cents or less downloaded.

The big three (Yahoo, Google, and MSN) are all heavily involved with acquiring rights to deliver information to you. While some company’s executives were saying the days of the TV networks were over, Google struck a deal with CBS. Even Rupert Murdoch (Fox) said the future of news was in digital delivery including audio and video with the plain text versions. With the amount of original material his companies own and produce there could easily be a fourth player in the game. And let’s not forget existing services such as Direct TV who offer movie downloads to your handheld devices. The advertising revenues will be going to the services that can attract the most visitors and Bill Gates projected some $30 Billion for the Internet for 2006.

Anyone who is in business needs to be aware that your future success may well depend on how well and how soon you adopt the principles of digital advertising. Last year I talked about the large chain stores positioning themselves for inclusion in Local Search with the Search Engines. The reason they’ve done this is to be sure their stores are mentioned when someone sits in a car and does a Local Search for what they need right now. No phone books, no asking someone for directions because with the store information will come maps that show them exactly how to get there from here plus what you offer. The price and location decisions will be made before you ever see the customer.

Even for something as simple as fuel for their vehicles, clean restrooms, and a bite to eat the traveler’s pit stop is likely to be influenced by the Internet. Which portal they use to find your store will be up to the user – it’s your decision whether you want them to find you or your competitor. Real estate agents will tell you that location is everything and the new location is the Internet.

Mile Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-business owner who specializes in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. This article with more information can be read on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Search Engine Optimization Book

2006-01-02T03:28:00.000-08:00

With a New Year comes a new chance to make a difference in your life by using the Internet. In the end of the year wrap-up we're all prone to doing we like to see what we've done well and what needs improvements. Just about all the publications I read regularly had some sense of evaluation this last month.

One of the people whose e-bulletins I read every month said that last year he developed too many products and spread himself too thin. That was no surprise to us here at Myklin. We read a lot of things from people we don't buy from. This particular author carries some weight in the "Information Sales" area of the Internet. Sometimes we like the ideas he has or it leads us along a road we're already traveling ourselves. But, he hasn't made customers of us yet.

The reason is what he just said of himself; he tries to develop too many products and doesn't give any of them the depth they need to become quality acquisitions.

On the other side you have a company like us, Myklin. We only release one information product of our own in the year. The book is about Search Engine Optimization and usually has only 2-3 updates in 12 months. It's our in-house manual that everyone here uses to develop websites for our clients.

I know, it's a little strange to see a company that offers to sell you a copy of what most consider to be their "secret" approach but we've found that most people still think there's some magical way to get results without working for them. Wrong. Real results take work and most people want the instant success products instead.

This is why we very happily make our book available to the public. Since we don't try to mislead you with huge headlines about ridiculous results while you're sleeping only the most discriminating visitors will buy this.

A small warning here; we give existing customers discounts for each update and 9 out of 10 customers take advantage of this. That by itself says something about the quality of the only publication we write in a year. (It also means that part of the increased sales you get should be ear-marked for updates!)

We'll be publishing an update to Search Engine Optimization Tactics v2.6 sometime this Spring but the last version is still very relevant and available. If we publish a new version within 60 days of your purchase you'll get a copy at no charge.

Take a look at the book: http://www.myklin.com/search-engine-optimization-book.htm

Uncle Bob Advertising Concepts

2005-12-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

I should probably apologize to anyone named "Bob" just to get started. The only reason I picked on "Bob" was because it's the name of someone I kept stumbling over last week.

"Uncle Bob" was the standard by which my comments and suggestions were being rated. You probably know an "Uncle Bob" of your own, it's the person whose opinion you count as being an authority. "Uncle Bob" is successful in his community and quite willing to share his expertise with anyone who is willing to listen.

The problem with "Uncle Bob" is that he has never sold anything on the Internet. That's not going to stop him from expounding on what will be successful, though. His opinion will govern what his listeners will believe of your message. Everything that is new or different has to get past the "Uncle Bob" filter before it will be considered.

I had a client telling me that what I've been doing on the Internet for the past four years obviously won't work because it's contrary to reason. His "Uncle Bob" tells him exactly how the ads should read and what people want to hear about his product.

"Sigh....... sigh ...........sigh!"

I wonder, what's the point in going to an Internet specialist if you're going to ignore the advice they give you? A weekly magazine I take talked about customers and their attitudes this way.
"If you approach me and tell me you want your website to perform better, what's the point in telling me that I can't change anything about the website? Why do you waste your time and mine if you are not willing to take the advice of the consultants you hire? What part of "You must change your website," do you NOT understand?"

There must be a lot of "Uncle Bob's" out there. I get copies of so-called "marketing studies" that are written by people with NO Internet experience. The clients seem surprised when I discount this material. They've paid someone for the analysis - the wrong person, but there isn't a good way to tell them that. It is nothing more than a starting point. Traditional advertising does NOT work on the Internet. Unless you're prepared to understand this, you are wasting your time (and money).

Good Luck.

Grandparents raising Grandchildren.

2005-12-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a great new "how-to" book for Grandparents who find themselves raising another generation. Full of places to find help the book is written by people who are doing this themselves.

The book uses examples from their own lives and the lives of their friends to show you how to make life a little easier when your grandchildren move in and even offers reasons why this is happening to millions of families.

This is a must read for teachers, counselors, foster parents .... anyone who leads support groups or works with people raising grandchildren.

An inexpensive gift for friends and families, this can help open conversations about what is happening in your life.

The book is available exclusively through Myklin Publishing. Find it here:
www.myklin.com/grandparents-raising-grandchildren.html

Sonja K. Ayres Artwork - Get a Free Catalog

2005-12-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

Award winning Oklahoma artist and potter, Sonja K. Ayres has a new electronic catalog that you can download. You can see high-resolution copies of her prints that depict diverse subjects from around the world and your own back yard.

Tuscany scenes
Ivory Billed Woodpecker (thought to be extinct for 60 years and recent in Arkansas)
Horses
Fly fishing scenes
Portraits
Native American scenes
Western scenes
and much more .....

Plus, Sonja takes commissions for portaiture so you can give your loved ones a truly special gift, a painting of themselves to treasure forever.

The catalog is completely free with no obligation. Get your copy today at www.myklin.com !

Cathy Armstrong Photographs Displayed

2005-12-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

My good friend, Cathy Armstrong, wrote to tell me her barn photos are on display at the Fort Smith Art Center until December 30, 2005. It's upstairs in the Photo Alliance's Mini Gallery.

Cathy is a very talented photographer and this is a rare opportunity to see her work publically displayed. If you have the opportunity, please do go out and take a look!

The Fort Smith Art Center is located at 423 N. 6th Street, four blocks north of Garrison Ave. They are open Tuesday-Saturday 9:30 AM - 4:30PM.

Website Entry Pages by Maintained Website Services

2005-12-02T03:36:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in on a company’s marketing meeting recently. The head of IT was laying out a very pretty picture of how visitors would be experiencing the newly updated website. They had spent a lot of energy on creating a good experience for the buying public. He talked about how people would be able to find what they wanted by selecting options as they moved through the site.

The problem was that they had not made much preparation for a visitor who entered the website some place other than the home page. This was the place where the options started from and you were already selecting options when you moved deeper into their information.

So why is this a problem you ask? Wouldn’t someone find a website by entering at the home page? The answer is, not always. It has to do with how the visitor found the website and how you have laid out your information.

Successful websites are optimizing their pages for Search Engine results. In doing this, different pages are optimized for different search terms. Pages at our main website (http://www.myklin.com/) get visitors using very different search terms such as, “maintained website services, pictures on candles, Native American wall art, and fingernail decals.” There are others as well that direct people to our information.

Each specific page has information optimized towards a specific search term that the visitor is looking for. Because of this, each page has become an entry page. Many people never see our home page but they do get a chance to select which product they want on every page. Plus, I can use the higher traffic pages to encourage them to look at other goods and services.

You can argue that the self-selection process started away from our website but if you don’t allow the visitor to continue to make a full range of choices they will stay visitors and not become customers. You ignore the opportunity to cross-sell and that is under utilizing the website’s potential.

Finding new customers is the expensive part of the process. Existing customers are usually easier to make new sales to assuming you gave them a good experience the first time. To make a visitor into a customer you must engage them in a conversation and let them find what they want to see in the easiest possible way. Making it difficult for them to make choices is a good way to make them leave.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

What About Google’s New Analytics

2005-11-25T09:55:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Google offered a complete set of web analytics for free to anyone who wanted to sign up. This is similar to what a lot of good webmasters use to track the visitors at a website. Some of the hosting companies include this kind of report in their monthly fees but generally you have to do the work yourself; download the log files and run them through some kind of interpreting software for them to make sense.

So Google’s offer of free analytics has been a boon to many who needed this kind of information but didn’t feel comfortable working with the files. Google’s report includes entry pages, exit pages, referrers, and search term. If you haven’t been doing any analytics this kind of information will be really useful. Until now, many of these reports have cost you money to be able to use.

I got an e-mail from Google this morning that shows just how popular this new service has been. I signed up when it started and put their pieces of code on several web pages we maintain to compare it with my own metrics. It looks like lots of other webmasters did the same thing because Google has temporarily stopped taking new accounts.

Here’s a quote from their e-mail.
“First, due to extremely high demand, we've temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. This allows us to focus on our primary objective--to provide a great user experience for our existing users.”

They assure us the freeze is short-term and they are adding capacity as quickly as possible. So why would they go to all this trouble to offer a free service?

Google is getting an inside look at just how popular specific websites are. When it comes time to give someone Search Engine Results they will be able to look at the exact traffic websites are getting and serve up very exact matches. A question to think about is, “What happens to all the websites that don’t allow Google access to their visitor statistics?”

Will these websites have trouble getting in the Google Search Results pages? Will you be able to get to the Page 1, Top 10 position without showing Google your site traffic?

These questions and many others are looking for answers that only time will provide. But it’s the kind of information your Internet Marketing company needs to be watching.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Actionable Information by Maintained Website Services

2005-11-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Actionable information sounds almost like something a lawyer would be arguing in court. In terms of the Internet and how it applies to your website we use it to mean information that allows you to make informed decisions. Businesses don’t survive by making guesses; they prosper by considering the advantages and disadvantages of a situation.

Should you buy gadgets at a low price and reasonably expect to sell them at a profit? Is there even a demand for gadgets? How will advertising change your expectations?

Using good web metrics you can accurately track your visitors as they enter and leave your website. The better metrics will allow you to track the path they take through your website as well. Are they taking the paths you expected them to use or they being distracted or lost as they navigate through the information you provide.

The better you understand their behavior the better you will be able to serve them and hopefully make the sale. If you have served them well you should be able to build on this first success and create a lasting relationship. Repeat business is the heart of most successful companies.

By working with a good Internet Marketing company you should get the benefits of being told actionable information. One ad campaign has a lower return than the other one and we can see this in the metrics of the web site traffic. No guesses; just real decisions made on real information. A very strong benefit to using the Internet for part of your marketing is the ability to get observable details about specific tactics.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and E-Business owner. His company, http://www.myklin.com/, provides information to businesses about e-marketing techniques and Search Engine Optimization tactics.

There is No Page 2!

2005-11-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

Above my desk there is a handwritten message that I can see every time I raise my eyes. It is the absolute essential core of everything we do here. It sets our goals in terms that have no qualifying elements. There can be no misunderstanding.

There is no page 2!

If you are going to the trouble to have a web site (and let's admit they are a headache at times) then the only place you want it to appear is on Page 1 of someone's Search Engine Results Page (SERP). So few people look past the first results they get they probably don't even know if the results are relevant to their search.

So, the question to ask is; are you wasting your web site?

Despite the Internet being everywhere very few people really understand how to make it work to their advantage. It's not hard to create a pleasant looking website. I know a dozen young teenagers who can make your eyes pop out with beautiful animations and glorious images. You can drop by EBay and pick up hundreds of templates for pennies and web designers appear every time you turn around. But, it's what you do with these beautiful creations that will make all the difference to your success.

Pretty pictures by themselves are worse than useless. It will delude you into thinking that your web site is doing what you need it to do. The whole purpose of your web site is to support your business. If all it's doing is sitting there, looking pretty, what's the point in wasting your money?

A web site that looks great can be absolutely invisible to the Search Engines. If the pages are invisible then they will not be indexed and your web site will languish (along with your business) for lack of attention. I see this every week. A client will bring a web site that looks good, the navigation is clear, the pictures and words weave together to create a good buying experience, but no one sees it because the Search Engines aren't indexing the content.

The sad part is that the web designer probably doesn't realize what a terrible blow they are dealing your business. It often takes just a few changes in the background code (that you never see anyway) to produce the results you want. Your beautiful web site can look the same and finally stop being a waste of your money.

That's what we do for you. We help your web site be the asset you need it to be. We're so confident of our ability to tweak your website we prefer to accept some portion of your sales as part of your payment. If your web site doesn't produce we don't make any money either. (Of course, we still work for cash if you want.)

That's confidence. That's experience. That's what your website needs today.

Why are you delaying? It's not going to cost you anything to talk with us about your website. Plus, we'll never share anything we learn about you with anyone else whether you become clients or not.

I know; you're used to companies yelling the customer's details from the rooftops as some validation for their services. Well, we don't do that. Your business is just that, your business.

A company that talks to you about another company will want to talk about you to someone else. We don't do that.

Just another great reason to write to me today to get started!

mike@myklin.com

Inside Search Marketing - Part 2

2005-11-17T03:15:00.000-08:00

Last week we created a new Sponsored Search Account with Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) and began promoting a new product. This is a pay per click (PPC) campaign meaning we pay for each time a person clicks on one of our ads. A much-expanded version of this article, including last week’s information and a detailed search term analysis, is available at www.myklin.com/campaign.

The product, an updated version of an electronic book, “SEO-Tactics v2.6”, was started with five search terms. The highest number of impressions is coming through a term, “Internet Marketing Book” that is generally about the book’s subject, which we expected. However, we are getting a smaller click through rate (CTR) than the more relevant search term, “Search Engine Optimization Book.” This is a good thing. The less relevant the search term is to our product the less likely we will make a sale. I don’t really want to have someone clicking on our ads unless they are looking for what we’re selling.

The more relevant term is getting a CTR over 2.5% which means my ads are working fairly well. I have seen better rates but they could be much lower. On a daily basis they sometimes exceed 4% so these are weekly averages.

Different terms will have different costs and the costs can change daily. We started with five terms ranging in cost from .11 to $1.02 per click and the pricing has remained stable. We bid just enough to get number two positions with all the terms.

We’ve had 1329 impressions (the number of people who saw our sponsored ads) this week and a total of 32 clicks for a total cost of $7.32. That’s an average CPC (cost per click) of just 23 cents, down from 62 cents last week. More of our clicks are coming through lower priced search terms. The campaign total is $14.08.

YSM says we’ve had one conversion (sale) this week. If they are correct then the total cost of the campaign would be the advertising cost for the sale. YSM tracks this by placing a cookie in the browsers of people who click through my ads and then checking to see if the cookie is still in the browsers at the sale completion page on my website. If your browser deletes cookies at the end of the on-line session they would not be able to track your visit correctly. In fact, we had five new customer sales this week and this campaign is the only expense connected with the book, so my advertising cost per sale is just $2.82. I do sell this book to previous customers for half price and through commission sales by affiliates as well so we’re just following new sales in these articles.

Look for more explanations next week as we continue to watch this active campaign.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Internet Marketing. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Inside Search Marketing - Part 1

2005-10-30T08:57:00.000-08:00

This week starts an insider’s view of an active Internet Marketing Campaign. We have created a new Sponsored Search Account with Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) and you can follow the account activity almost as it happens. A much-expanded version of this article, including detailed search term analysis, is available at www.myklin.com/campaign.

The product is a newly updated version of an electronic book, “SEO-Tactics v2.6”. Since the subject is search engine optimization techniques it is necessary to update this book about every six to ten weeks. The search engines change their algorithms at least this often. This time we’ve changed the title so we’ll need to rebuild relevance with the search engines over the next three to seven months and by then we’ll probably revise it several times. In the meantime, we’ll use sponsored search to generate some sales. In effect, with a new title and new marketing account this is just like you launching a new product.

Once we created the account with YSM (formerly Overture) we had to choose search terms we would bid on. Different terms will have different costs and the costs can change daily. We started with four terms ranging in cost from .11 to $1.02 per click (the list of search terms and the specific costs is available at www.myklin.com/campaign). We chose a couple of terms with few searches and one term that was expecting high numbers of searches. At the end of this first week I have added a fifth term.

In each term we’re shown how much other advertisers are paying per click. You can decide what position you want in the Sponsored Search Results and bid just enough to get that position. We started with two number 1 positions and two, number 2 positions. At the end of this week I have just reduced my bids so we have number two positions in all terms.

The results for the first three days are encouraging. We had 451 impressions (the number of people who saw our sponsored ad) and a total of 11 clicks for a total cost of $6.76. That’s an average CPC (cost per click) of just 62 cents. Plus, our click rate is over 2% meaning the ads I’m writing are creating interest.

YSM says we’ve had no conversions (no sales) yet. YSM tracks this by placing a cookie in the browsers of people who click through my ads and then checking to see if the cookie is still in the browsers at the sale completion page on my website. If people delete cookies when they go off-line (a common practice) there would be no cookie to track unless they completed the purchase during the same on-line session.

Look for more explanations next week as we continue to watch this active campaign.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Autoresponder Update

2005-10-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with the latest autoresponder systems available. Some are free and some cost a small fee each month to use. There have been several powerful changes in the software over the past couple of years. The interfaces have become smoother and testing has become easier.

What is an autoresponder? This is a program that sends out a series of emails at predetermined intervals. You enter your email address in the sign-up area and a response is sent almost before you finish.

There are several reasons for a business to use autoresponders. It’s a good way to help your potential customers get more information very quickly. Since the customer has to sign up for more information you know that something about your website has sparked their interest.

Most people don’t buy until they’ve had time to think about the purchase. Typical sales result after 5-7 visits to a site. The autoresponder messages help maintain a relationship with people as they are considering the advantages of buying from you. Since each message can add information or even a special coupon you have continuous opportunities to make the sale.

I have used autoresponders to deliver daily and weekly lessons to students. A major advantage was each person working on their own schedule. You can change the interval between messages as well. The first message is delivered immediately, the second message was three days later, the third message was delivered two days after the one before, and so on.

Sometimes my autoresponders are set to deliver 5 days of information then wait a week and send another one reminding viewers they haven’t bought a product. The point is that each message gives you an opportunity to make a sale. Since people sign up for the services you get at least an email address for a lead. You can ask for as much information as you want, of course. I generally ask for very little until they have received more information. By the time a person has received three or four messages I’m no longer a stranger. They feel they know me and should be more willing to share some personal information.

One big advantage to a business is once the autoresponder is written the process is completely automatic for you. You can then spend your time paying attention to other parts of your business.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Maintained Website Services Donates Furniture

2005-09-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Myklin Enterprises, LLC who owns www.maintained-website-services.com and www.myklin.com was able to find used furniture to donate to the victims of the Katrina disaster.

25 complete beds plus dresser/desks were moved to the Salvation Army offices in FT. Smith, AR over the past two weeks. No restrictions were put on the use of the donations.

Pictures and more details can be seen at www.myklin.com/donations.

The Salvation Army said they have a shortage of some fresh foods - milk, bread, coffee and large cans of prepared foods they use to feed the needy in their shelters. Donations of these items are always welcome.

Predicting the Internet Future

2005-09-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

I remember watching TV shows when I grew up that made a lasting impression on me. Not just the Wild Kingdom shows but also the “Home of Tomorrow” and “In the Future”. I’m sure these sound familiar to many of you.

The shows that looked to the future painted pictures of a bright world where technology was going to make incredible things possible.

Our meals would be cooked in seconds by the power of atomic energy.

Entertainment would be beamed into our homes from space.

Homes would be so easy to move and cheap to build that we could set them down almost anywhere.

We’d also be able to move almost anywhere because we’d work from home over the airwaves.
But when I sat and imagined all these wonderful things I didn’t imagine the way in which all of them have come to pass.

· $20 microwave ovens from the local discount chain.
· Satellite TV channels that show black and white re-runs from my childhood.
· Mobile homes (‘scuse me; manufactured housing) that can be wheeled onto site for no money down and resold several times by the financiers.
· Dial up Internet connections that allow us to explore our limits of patience.

So when I hear people talking about the ways in which the Internet will continue to impact our lives I wonder which version it will turn out to be; the imagination of my childhood or the implementation of their ideas that I see around me now. Even the Bill Gate’s and Steve Job’s of the world must surely have their dreams modified by the stern constraints of manufacturing processes and market demand forces.

I have been reading the released patent application of a group of search engine engineers from Google, (Retrieval Based on Historical Data, December 2003). They talked of many things were already being done and implied several new areas in which they were working. Now, anyone who does anything with patents knows that you always claim as much as possible in order to protect your claim. Patent awards get downsized as you go through the process. But the implications of where they are heading can be amazing.

The development of local search is something that you hear much about in this business. The widening of technology to allow search results to be brought to not only your computer but also your cell phone may bring you the greatest changes. The changes may not just be in the information you get but also the technology you get it through. Gateway and Dell (plus others) want you to use their integrated home media centers for all your entertainment issues; television and Internet both in one package. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the phones tied into this with voice activated control systems that can set limits on options depending on the person talking.

I wonder how the reality will be implemented.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Questions for Maintained Website Services

2005-09-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

A reader writes to ask, “What’s to stop a website developer from taking my ideas for their own? I think I have a good idea and don’t want to lose it.”

When you bring your ideas to a developer you are creating a relationship as binding as that between attorney and client. By paying even a small retainer you are hiring the ethical expertise of the company and can confidently expect them to respect your intellectual property.

Are there unscrupulous website developers? Yes, of course there are, just as there are unscrupulous people in any business. But, by staying away from fly by night firms that promise the moon you can reasonably expect security in your dealings.

If you’re in doubt as to how a company protects your confidential information, ask them before you start. We make a point of telling all our visitors that we don’t share anything we learn about you with anyone else, whether you become a client or not. My yardstick of trust is based on this; if a company talks to you about their clients, they will talk about you to others.

A pet peeve of mine is the headline advertising that is spread about the Internet. A company claiming that “so-and-so” company had a terrible time making sales until they came along and saved them. Or, that they increased their traffic and sales by some huge amount.

It may be true, but I don’t like the implied superiority behind the bragging. A simple point these advertisers seem to miss is that these companies are already successful. They make sales, treat their customers well, have a good reputation, and will probably continue to do well with, or without, someone else’s help. Respect is something you bring with you at all times, not just when it suits you.

I recommend you insist on the same confidentiality and respect you would expect from your attorney or banker. Just because you’re heading to the Internet doesn’t mean you must leave your privacy behind.

Another question, “How do I know if my idea will flourish using the Internet?” A reputable company can do some research for you and help you discover the answer. There are several ways to determine demand or competition; combine that with some key term research and you’re well on your way with your due diligence.

You can get your questions answered in person over the next couple of weeks. I’ll be teaching continuing education classes through Carl Albert State College. The class is called, “To Ebay or not to Ebay”. It’s about e-commerce in general, not just Ebay. You can still get seats by calling Linda Bradbury at 647-1278. The classes will be held at the Sallisaw campus on September 24th and at the Poteau campus on October 1st.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

You Don’t Want a Website

2005-09-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

There can be many reasons why you don’t want a website. Simply not being comfortable with the technology is often at the center of these reasons. As widespread as the Internet has become, it’s still very new to many people.

If you think the reluctance is from the older generations you’ll be surprised. Amongst our older citizens, Internet use is growing rapidly. For those of use with decreasing mobility and even decreased resources, the Internet is a very easy and cost effective way to maintain social contacts. It’s proving to be a good way to find entertainment, services and products.

The youngest generations seem to have been born with a modem already implanted... uh, I mean installed. I have grandchildren who can sit beside me and guide me through complex tasks at this computer. They seem to have an uncanny ability to understand the relationship between cursor and mouse. Computer use will feel very natural and basic to them as they continue to grow.

So if it’s not the young and the old who aren’t comfortable with the technology, who is it? Surprisingly (at least to me) it is the “bridge generation”. It’s those of us in our 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s who didn’t have exposure to computers as they emerged. The people whose work doesn’t rely on heavy computer use and who haven’t yet bought into the whole PDA, Computer, Cell-Phone, and “constant contact” lifestyle.

But, this is also the age group most likely to be starting new businesses. Not being comfortable with the technology will make its use a lot less attractive to these entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it will prevent them from attracting two very important market segments. Both younger and older groups tend to have disposable income and time to make considered purchases. Without a website you won’t be showing them your products.

A simple information website is very inexpensive to run with costs starting out lower than most monthly advertising costs. Plus, you can listed in the various “local search” services being developed by the Search Engines. This means that if someone goes looking for a “shoe repair” within 50 miles of their home your business can be at the top of their search results. (I picked on “shoe repair” because this is becoming difficult to find. Increasing labor costs and decreased pricing for new shoes has helped make this skill an endangered species.) I will point out that increasing numbers of people are likely to use the Internet over the phone book to find what they want.

To get results from Internet marketing you don’t even need to have a computer yourself. The listing can show your business address, other pertinent information, and even have a map to show people exactly where you are or the area you service.

All good reasons to use the Internet to your advantage even when you don’t want a website.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Maintained Website Services Traffic Stats

2005-09-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that we maintain different websites across several interest areas for our clients. Because we do, we sometimes see things that would usually be overlooked.

An interesting thing showed up this week when we compiled our server logs and checked the traffic patterns. Across the different sites we had the first week where the majority of the traffic came from non-Internet Explorer browsers.

Does this mean something special? Yes, if you're designing web pages that only show well in IE you'd have missed over 50% of our visitors this week. Kind of a large segment to ignore.

Hmmmmmm ....

Have a great weekend!

-Mike-

www.maintained-website-services.com
www.myklin.com

Check Your Website

2005-09-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

With all the pressure to perform that can be put on your website, it’s not surprising to find lots of outside help trying to tell you what it should be doing. The conflicting messages are numerous and each one can sound very convincing. How do you tell what is more than “smoke and mirrors”? How do you tell which of the offers you should listen to and which belong in the junk mail pile?

Measurable performance has to be the keystone of your expectations. Any special software that someone is trying to sell you to make your website perform better has to pass this test. Do the Search Engine Results improve after you use the products?

To know this you need to know your starting point. How does your website perform right now?
An easy question but not always an easy answer. If you ask a pure IT professional they’ll most likely answer with figures about bandwidth usage and raw hits. Your marketing department is likely to give entirely different answers as they talk about click-through traffic and per impression costs.

My answers tend to be questions first. What’s your target keywords? How high do you rank in Search Engine Results pages (SERPs)? What’s the conversion rate (the numbers of leads or sales per hundreds of visitors) of the website? Once you know where you’re starting from you can then decide where you want to go and how you’ll get there.

Today I’ll even make a special offer to all our readers. I will check the performance of your website for no charge or obligation. Just send me the web address you own (for example; http://www.myklin.com/) and I’ll take a look at the publicly available information and send you an e-mail about what I find. Sometimes when I do this I get to tell the owners – Great Job! Keep up the good work.

The Internet potential is too large to ignore for most businesses. With local search gaining strength the time to get your position established is now. Local search is coming to phones, which means the service will be everywhere there are people. Even in our less densely populated areas you can find many services that are already at the top of their categories. Getting in now means not having to fight for your place in the years to come.

Look at some of the big retailers and see what they’re doing with local search. Does anyone reading this article not know where to find the local Wal-Mart store? Or Sears, or Penny’s? Why then are these stores in most local searches along with the other big chains. Because they are planning for 3-5 years down the road when your Internet experience will be centered on where you live, where you work, and where you drive. They are positioning themselves to provide the most relevant content to your world. Exactly what the Search Engines claim to be doing for you today.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner specializing in Search Engine Optimization. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

What Your Website Needs

2005-08-29T03:21:00.000-07:00

A website for a business has to accomplish very specific goals. You set the goals and then design each web page. Each page should have a specific topic and support the overall goals of the site.
If you talk with a business development specialist they will ask you for your “unique proposition”. This is the reason that your business will succeed. If you can’t identify a specific reason why someone should do business with you instead of your competition, your business venture will most likely fail.

A common mistake that many new business owners make is to say, “Well, the market for this product is huge and if I can get just 3% I’ll make money.” This approach is almost universally fatal. It’s such a common misconception that potential investors who hear this statement will back away very quickly.

Your business (and your website) will succeed only after you can identify the reason someone should buy from you. Websites that do not have specific goals to accomplish will satisfy no one, least of all the visitors who stumble across it. I say stumble because without the strength of relevant content aimed at a central topic your website will flounder.

Search Engines determine which web pages are relevant to searches by examining the text of the page. Pictures and fancy programming are only there for the humans to see. I saw a beautiful website recently when a potential client asked me to look at their site and see what recommendations I could make. There was no text on the website; the entire page was a picture. It was invisible to the Search Engines. My advice; rewrite the entire page using text and try to preserve the overall appearance.

I have said before that a lot of websites are high-tech extensions of someone’s ego. They’ve let their ego’s over-ride the functionality of the website. If your website isn’t working for you it’s a drain on your resources. A bad website can do more harm than not having one at all.

The Internet is a constantly evolving medium that requires constant changes to stay current and relevant. Techniques that were in common usage only a year ago can get your website banned from Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) today. For this reason, I recommend you use a website maintenance service unless you can afford to hire someone who works on your site 24/7.

You can live without SERPs if you’re willing to spend money on advertising but why block your business from the benefits with bad website techniques? I told someone this week that a website today is like the telephone of 30 years ago. It gives legitimacy to a business. Today it’s possible to conduct business without a telephone (we don’t advertise a phone number) but we certainly could not do business without the website and e-mail.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also get information on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Helping Each Other with the World Wide Web

2005-08-29T03:18:00.000-07:00

As a website designer and Internet marketer, I’m often approached by people with good ideas who want to know how they can get their thoughts to the Internet. I thought I’d share some of the more interesting projects I’ve seen this last year.

This first one (Freecycle) is designed to reduce the amount of stuff being sent to our landfills. Instead of throwing your unwanted items away they provide a place where you can tell people what you want to give away. Or you can list what you need to find for free. The concept is to give things away instead of charging or exchanging for it. A Wister resident runs the local group and here is their web address. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeFloreFreecycle/ If you have problems finding them let me know and I’ll send you a fresh link in an email.

I found that group when helping to put together a local barter club. This group http://www.barter-oklahoma.com/ is for those who are willing to swap items and expect a fair trade. For now, the service is completely free to use. You can list what you have to trade or what you want. You’re not expected to exchange money but it’s completely up to the participants how they do their trading. Eventually the site will offer low cost memberships that will help you conduct inequitable trades (where one person gets more or less out of the transaction). The site developers are giving away free memberships while they find the weaknesses in the system. There is a variety of goods and services available; from tire swaps to movie rentals to propane heaters. You’re encouraged to list something even if you don’t see something you want. In this way, the number of people using the program will increase and more trading will happen. The site also offers information on why barter clubs help local communities.

Then we have people who want to help their neighbors learn new skills. Carl Albert State College business instructor, Anthony Fortner, is offering a free CPA review course this fall. There are details at his site, http://www.oklahoma-cpa-review.com/. The classes started this week so I encourage you to contact him while there’s still room left.. These classes can be very expensive to attend in other places. CASC also offers many other free and low cost programs to area residents. You can find information at www.carlalbert.edu.

If you just want to brag about your neighborhood children or have a program designed to help them, there is a free site at http://www.leflore-county-youth.org/ that is sponsored in part by the Heavener Chamber of Commerce. The original idea was to give everyone a place to exchange program details. It’s still available for anyone who works with our children.

There was a news article last month about the number of good computers hitting the landfills. To help avoid this problem you can donate your old computer at a number of sites. This site offers a national database where you can participate. www.sharetechnology.org

The Internet continues to be a place where people can easily share an idea. It’s very easy to get your voice heard, not just by your neighbors, but also around the world.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Sales On the World Wide Web

2005-08-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Online sales to consumers are up by 34% over the same week in July last year. This is helping to fuel the continuing yearly increase that online businesses are enjoying. For the first half of 2005, online sales are up by over 25% over the first half of 2004.

These constantly increasing numbers show that the Internet is still growing faster than the economy as a whole. The brick and mortar sales for the same period also rose, but only by 6.3%.
What are the dollar figures for these increases? Try $36.6 billion in online sales for the first half of 2005. That’s up from $29.3 billion for the same time last year.

These numbers are impressive and show why so many companies and individuals are taking their ideas to the Internet. Ebay also shows an increase in listings of 34% over last year and a 36% increase in gross merchandise sales. Many other retailers also show large gains including Amazon with a 26% increase.

If you’re in business or thinking about starting one, the Internet continues to be a place for large exposure for a small cost. Even the sales of computers have increased, up almost 15% over last year. There are more people with more computers buying from the Internet and the growth does not show many signs of slowing down yet.

A recent survey also indicated that real world sales are often preceded by an Internet search. Before buying larger ticket items many consumers are seeking out the best deals they can find from Internet sources.

Even if your company doesn’t sell from your website people are still looking for information. If you’re not providing it for them you can bet your competition is. Here’s a quote from the August 2005 Internet Retailer magazine, “The Internet is no longer a medium where it’s nice have advertising. Today, a web presence is required.”

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Selling on Ebay

2005-08-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

Recent changes at Ebay may affect some of you who use the service to sell your items. Ebay claims that there are over 700,000 users who make a living selling items on the site. That’s out of a total 64 million users worldwide. Chances are, even if you don’t use Ebay, you know several people who do.

Wow! That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of money changing hands, too. How you get paid on Ebay has been a driving force of PayPal’s growth as well. Ebay owns PayPal and made the company the preferred way to pay for your purchases or collect your payment when the selling is done.

It hasn’t been difficult to get a personal PayPal account. You answer a few questions, provide them with a bank account and credit card, and you’re ready to move money around the world.

Ebay has even made it easy to show your acceptance of PayPal in your listings. There are numerous seals and banners you can display to let people know you’re ready to take their money.

So what’s the change that will affect you? If you will accept PayPal payments for your Ebay goods, you must now be willing to accept all PayPal payments including credit cards. Personal PayPal accounts cannot accept credit cards. To accept credit card payments you must upgrade your account to one of the premium services (Premier or Merchant).

Upgrading your account won’t cost you any money but when you accept payments you will now pay some fees. Generally, the fees are .30 plus 2.9% of the transaction. If you sell something for $50 your fees would be $1.75. That amount is subtracted from the transaction when PayPal transfers the funds to your account.

What this means to you will depend on how much you use Ebay. If you just buy there you may see some price increases from the sellers who look to maintain their profit margins. If you are an Ebay seller you may need to rethink your pricing structure to capture your increased costs. This policy goes into effect August 19, 2005.

So why would Ebay require you to accept credit cards? They say it’s to level the playing field and reduce buyer confusion. If you’re going to state that PayPal is an acceptable method of payment you must accept all forms of PayPal payments.

If you don’t accept PayPal you will not be required to accept credit cards. Many people who sell there only accept checks. It’s much slower than using PayPal and you don’t have the protections PayPal and Ebay offer. I’ve had to use Square Trade and PayPal’s buyer protection services to get money back from fraudulent sellers. It took a couple of weeks but I didn’t have to hunt the people down myself.

You can find more information about this new policy in the 7-15-05 “Updated Policy for PayPal Payments on eBay”.

Ebay is also discontinuing the Ebay Anything Points® program in the USA. Starting 8-15-05 you will not be able to use these in your listings and they will phase out completely by 2-28-06. If you’ve got some Points you need to use them soon.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

The E-mail Question

2005-07-31T18:58:00.000-07:00

With the growth of the Internet came an explosion of new advertising techniques. If you have a connection to the Internet and a very inexpensive software program it is possible to reach thousands of people every day.

With print advertising you have expenses that must be recovered from every mailing. Think about just the mailing cost of a single letter and multiply it by only a thousand. Bulk mailing has worked and even the high costs of printing and mailing each offer didn’t stop the flood we all saw in our mailboxes. Plus, the costs helped keep the field restricted to companies that could afford to properly plan their message to ensure they would see the correct return.

Enter the Internet and the virtually cost free expenses of an e-mail campaign. It was inevitable that this medium would become a nuisance for so many people. In just a few minutes you can type out a message and in an hour the message can be broadcast to thousands of people around the world.

It’s not even difficult or expensive to find the e-mail addresses you need. Every week I get sent offers to buy e-mail lists that number millions of people. The cost – usually under $300. By comparison bulk mailing lists cost much more.

So the people as a whole fought back. Several different avenues have been tried with very limited success. Even the enactment of the CAN-SPAM laws have not really stopped the stuffed inboxes. It was a valiant attempt but fell short of the goal.

The various SPAM filters that are available use a list of trigger words or phrases to tell your e-mail programs something is possibly SPAM. That also means that perfectly innocuous messages can be filtered by mistake. If you’re curious what the most common words are, send me an e-mail and I’ll send you a list of the two hundred most common triggers you should avoid using in your message header of in the body of the e-mail.

What the population wanted was to stop getting junk e-mails. I think many people expected CAN-SPAM to do that. Well, it didn’t. The legislation only requires an easily found way to “opt out” of future mailings. Other measures are supposed to make it a crime to use false headers or pretend to come from someone else. That’s the area designed to prevent “Phishing”.

I got a very realistic e-mail that looked like it came from PayPal last week. It warned me that someone had attempted to access my account from overseas. Then it told me to sign-in to my account and verify that my account had not been compromised. The link they provided showed that it would take me to the PayPal site. Fortunately, I know that the PayPal site opens in a secure mode, using https not http. I forwarded the e-mail to PayPal who were quick to tell me they didn’t send it. I wasn’t surprised.

If there’s one message I hope to get across each week it’s that you must take your skepticism to the Internet. The scams can be very sophisticated and hard to detect. If an offer looks too good it’s probably a scam.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Website Metrics and the World Wide Web

2005-07-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages to using the Internet to advertise your products is the detailed information (website metrics) you can get back about specific ways you advertise. Every time someone looks at your website they leave a record behind of which pages they saw, the time of day, the day of the week, how much time they stayed on each page, where they came from, the page they landed on coming to your site and the page they left from.

That doesn’t mean I know your name or any other specifically personal information but I can tell which operating system you were using (Windows XP, ME, or 2000, Linux, etc), which browser you use (Internet Explorer users were less than 57% of my total use, or Firefox, Netscape, Mozilla), what screen resolution your monitor uses, your connection speed, your address as far as which town you live in, which Search Engine you used and what specific search term or phrase brought you to me.

What a wealth of information! I know from my own log files that last week I had visitors from France, India, the Netherlands and Germany; and even know the town names as well. From within the USA most of my visitors came from California and Delaware. I even had 15 visitors from Poteau (11 used Cyberlink to access my website) and 1 from Cambridge, England.

As a business I can see the immediate results of advertising done in different parts of the country. A classified ad done in South Carolina can be compared with ads done in South Dakota, or New York, or Washington. If different ads are used in the same area and direct you to different pages at my website I can even evaluate the specific messages using the same groups.

Plus, I can see what pages of my site you found interesting; how you followed information trails I built for you, and where you left (even when you don’t buy something or leave any contact information.) For anyone who really wants to see exactly how effective different marketing campaigns can be the Internet is a gold mine of information.

The Internet does not exist in a vacuum. It is influenced by seasonal trends and geographic preferences just as any other marketing tool. An ad that works well in a New England winter will most likely bomb in a Southwest summer. It’s the summertime in the USA. Most websites have seen a sharp drop in Internet visitors as we all head outside to enjoy ourselves. Yes, some businesses may have seen an increase in visitors but the larger number must wait for us all to get back from the lake. Hopefully, everyone is taking advantage of this time to evaluate their marketing plans.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Searching the World Wide Web

2005-07-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Part of understanding any industry is understanding the “jargon” used. This week I’m answering a reader’s question, “What are SERP’s and SEO?”

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. It’s the page of answers you get when you type a search term into your favorite search box. In Yahoo you’ll get a page of results with a light blue area at the top and sides called “Sponsor Results”.

Sponsor Results are paid advertising from companies that want you to see their ad when you enter a particular search term. They can pay either for you to see them (Pay Per Impression or PPI) or when you “click” on the ad to go to their website (Pay Per Click or PPC). The prices they pay for this advertising can be quite high. PPC tends to be higher cost and some terms can easily cost $5-$10 per click.

That’s not a misprint. I have recently done research for clients that showed a $7.50 per click cost for their advertising. It doesn’t matter if you buy from the advertiser or not. If you click on their ad you will cost them money. It all depends on the product and how badly a company wants you to see their products how much PPC advertising will cost.

In the middle of the Yahoo page you will find a list of websites numbered from #1 to #10. At the top there’s a heading of Search Results that will tell you how many websites have what you want. Sometimes this number can be in the 10’s of millions.( Try entering the term Christmas Present and see how many turn up.)

These websites are at the top of this list because the Search Engines found them to be the most relevant to your search terms. You can’t buy your way into these results and it doesn’t cost the companies anything to have you look at their site. These are called the “natural” or “organic” results.

This is where you get the term, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Websites can be optimized (designed well) so they are shown at the top of this list. It’s a good way to get advertising that doesn’t cost the companies any money. Plus, if the company doesn’t have to pay lots of advertising costs, you should be able to save money on your purchases. It’s a winning situation for you both.

So why don’t more companies use SEO to save money? The short answer is, it’s not easy. The Search Engines constantly change the way they rank websites in relation to each other. Most website designers don’t know how to do this. You have to work at double guessing how the Search Engines think. This is where the difference between most website designers and Internet Marketers becomes apparent.

A good Internet Marketer can show you how to get your website to the top of the organic results. You can always get a #1 result for your own unique name. Many unscrupulous companies promise you high rankings (for a fee) and only show you your own name.
The better companies can help you get high rankings for the search terms that apply to your product. Don’t settle for less. Always ask questions and take a healthy dose of skepticism with you to the Internet.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Finding Things on the World Wide Web

2005-06-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

When you want to find products or information on the Internet the usual approach is to go to your favorite Search Engine (Yahoo, Google, MSN, Dogpile) and type in the words that describe what you want. The more precise you are with your search term the more accurate the results will be.

If you’re not sure what you want you can enter broad terms and see what comes up. A search for “Christmas Gift” will give you literally millions of results, which you can sort through until you find what you want. Entering the term “Christmas Gift for boys” will give you a much shorter list of results. Each time you narrow your search you will get fewer results. Narrow your search term by adding modifiers and you can get very short lists of matching websites or possibly even a “no match found for your search term”.

Turn this around and you can often find unique ways to sell the things you make or do to people who are looking for exactly what you have to offer. The more successful on-line businesses have been using this approach for years now and many new companies were started using this approach.

To use an analogy; if the Internet is a newspaper there are articles about lots of different things that appeal to a lot of people. If I’m looking for a used car to buy I don’t want the TV listings or horoscope getting in the way of my looking at the classifieds. I just want the section that has information about used cars.

As a business, you can start by making your website “relevant” only to a very specific searcher. It will probably reduce the number of “hits” or visitors your site gets but the ones you do get are the one most likely looking for exactly what you have to offer. The ones you got rid of by being very specific are the ones who didn’t want what you have. It’s a winning situation for you both; your website isn’t clogged by unwanted traffic and you’re not annoying the people who don’t want your stuff.

There is a time to make your appeal to a general public. I targeted the search term “Christmas Presents” last year. By “targeted” I mean I designed my website to attract the attention of the Search Engines in that particular search term. It was a good thing for us to do and we had a lot of new visitors looking at our products.

There were about 25,000,000 competing websites so the targeting process started in May. That way we got maximum exposure in November by being shown in the unpaid search engine results. We needed about 10 days to make and ship the goods so we couldn’t afford to wait until December to get the orders for the holiday.

This lead-time is important to remember. It doesn’t do you much good to wait until 2 days before the event to order something from the Internet. Not unless what you’re ordering are “sorry I missed your birthday” presents. When you do find what you want, make sure the business can deliver in your time frame.

Unpaid search engine results are the ones that come up without being paid for by a company. These are usually surrounded by the expensive ads of the “Sponsor Results”. Those ads may not have anything to do with what you want to see. If a company wants you to see their products, they can pay for their ad to be shown when you go searching.

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

E-commerce on the World Wide Web

2005-06-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

E-commerce seems to be the new buzzword even though the dot-com industry has peaked and crashed. The stability of the survivors has been eyeballed by just about every business that avoided the rush. If you think about it, do you consider a business to be legitimate if they don’t have a website for you to see?

Not just established businesses are going on-line. As easy as it is to register a domain and get a “home page” going there are millions of people doing the same thing. They are offering just about everything under the sun in a medium that promises quick exposure to the buying public.
Got an idea for a company? There are countless offers to help from huge access providers like Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and many others. Don’t know much about designing a webpage? Not a problem as far as they’re concerned. All of them offer quick and easy to tools for you to use. If you can start a computer and get to the Internet chances are you can build a great looking site by using one of the free templates they’ll offer you. You won’t even need to understand html code.

Then what? You’ve got a great looking website. How do people find out what you’re offering? Word of mouth only works so far and then the site just sits there, with you paying the monthly fees for hosting, without so much as a whisper of a hint at a sale.

Here’s where you find out that having a website is not enough. Yes, people are looking for exactly what you’re offering but they aren’t seeing yours. You may have had a quick burst of interest for a few weeks before all the attention went away. What happened?

The Internet happened, that’s all. For all the power claimed for the Internet, it can be the most frustrating, irrational, and obnoxious creation since teenagers. There are ways to get your message out there but it will take time, energy, education and a fair amount of luck for your efforts to bear fruit. Don’t feel bad, though. Established companies have the same problems you do.

There are two ways to get noticed on the Internet. 1) Pay For Advertising, or, 2) Design better websites. Most people (and companies) flounder around with the second option until somebody gives up in disgust and just pays to get the results they want.

The big problem with designing better websites is that you are trying to second-guess someone else (the Search Engines) who (for the most part) won’t tell you what will give you the results you want. You can get good results but it does take time and concentration to make it happen. Plus, you can have millions of competing websites that are trying to do the same thing.
If you see advertising that “guarantees” you a specific result in Search Engine Results – BEWARE. There are several ways for someone to promise this but no one can guarantee you a specific result for anything besides your own unique name, which you can get without paying for it to happen. Take a healthy, heaping dose of skepticism and good sense to the Internet just as you would anywhere else.

(Next week – Search Terms and the Search Engines.)
Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce, you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

What To Do With the World Wide Web

2005-06-17T03:30:00.000-07:00

With the Internet in most people’s lives do you wonder just what uses we all find for it? The answer is just about as varied as the people you talk to.

Business, research, entertainment, communication; the ways in which you can spend your time are endless. The computer has finally beaten television as the # 1 way to spend leisure hours for millions of Americans. A recent government survey found that 3 out of 4 homes had a computer; that 80% of these had Internet access, and of these, 38% had high-speed connections.

Increasing numbers of people look to the Internet as a way to make some money. Domains are very inexpensive to buy and we all hear the messages about “The Power of the Web”. Is it really possible to make money using the Internet?

For more and more people the answer has been a resounding, yes. If you can avoid the scams and dead-end schemes, there are many ways to make a few extra dollars or even a living. A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good thing to use when looking at the “work at home” offers.

An example from my own business; every week I get several e-mails from people who claim their product (a “how to book”) will change the way I do business on the Internet. For the low, low price of only $19.95 they will share “insider’s secrets” that let them make thousands of dollars each month from the comfort of their own home.

Yeah. Right. You bet. Want to make a bet these books don’t include the instructions for me to write a how-to book and then SPAM the world until someone buys it? Sometimes they offer to let me have “resell rights” to their own books.

Another very popular approach is to have you accept a free Internet business for no charge. You can just send people to your website and when they buy your products, you get a check.
Okay, what’s the catch? You’ll find out you can also “buy” a place in a chain of people and get others to do the same thing. When they sell stuff at their site you get a percentage as their sponsor. This is usually set up as a monthly membership fee and you don’t get your percentage unless you pay for your membership.

Let’s repeat our warning: take a healthy, heaping dose of skepticism and good sense to the Internet just as you would anywhere else. There are legitimate ways to make money and they closely resemble things you see around you.
I will share the # 1 money making idea for an Internet business with you for no charge whatsoever.

Here it is.

You must create or find a product or service that someone else thinks is valuable and is willing to buy from you. That’s it; everything else is research and development.
This week’s definition – “Hits”, a person looking at one page of a website is 1 hit. If 2 separate pages are viewed that’s 2 hits, 3 pages = 3 hits and so on.
Good Luck!
(Next week – E-commerce and what to look out for.)

Mike Myklin is an author, a lecturer, and an e-commerce owner. If you have questions about the Internet and e-commerce you can send them to him and he will try to answer them in his column. You can also read this article on-line at http://www.myklin.com/.

Niche Marketing

2005-06-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

The summer is here and, unless you're in the resort business, sales have dropped. It's a common problem for anyone who depends on the buying public to pay our bills.

Not to fear. We'll all see new traffic arriving in a few weeks and for many of us this is the only breathing spell we'll get this year. When website traffic heads for the cellar it's a great time to start looking at your next market.

What's a niche market? An opportunity to sell specialized goods to a specific consumer. The market tends to be low demand or seasonal.

Well, if it's a small market do you want to bother with it? Of course you do! If the market can provide you with a profit does it matter that you can't send your kids to college on what you make from it?

www.Myklin.com has several different income streams that are generated by niche markets. Each one doesn't break our backs carrying the money to the bank but each is profitable in their own time. Collectively, the income adds up.

Here's the power of the Internet working to benefit us. By finding and servicing a small market you can add income streams when everyone else's are dropping.

A Website Is Not Enough

2005-06-11T06:12:00.000-07:00

It would be wonderfull if we could create the perfect website once and then just let it be. Unfortunately, the web won't let you do that. Search Engines are looking for fresh relevant content to offer their users. A website that doesn't change gets left behind.

For this reason, www.maintained-website-services.com spends a lot of time adding new relevant content to your web pages. It's the #1 activity for our staff!

You can find articles about the many aspects of running a website at our parent site, www.myklin.com .

Maintaining Websites

2005-06-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

Why Use A Maintained Website Service?

When you're starting out in your own business there is a tendency to want to do it all by yourself. It's human nature to "be the boss" and pay attention to all the details.

But, there are only so many hours in a day and minutes in an hour! If you can make the world's best widget that's what you should be concentrating on doing.

Internet marketing is somewhere between being an art and a science. The basics sound simple (and really it's not that complicated) but the application can be very time consuming.

Think about this analogy for a moment.
If you grew up in the maze of a huge city you would know how to get from one place to another. You could make a great living by taking visitors from one place to another so they wouldn't get lost or waste their money going in the wrong direction.
To do this you would need a taxi cab. Would you try to build that vehicle yourself? Of course not; there's plenty of good companies that sell them to you ready to use.

On the Internet, we're the taxi cab company that you can use to get your products to your customers. You don't need to recreate the taxi cab - just use our services to move your products.

Analogies only go so far. In the real world what matters is the bottom line. Can you use www.maintained-website-services.com to make money or are the costs too high?

Our fees can be as low as:

$25 per month for a website that has your domain name,
we pay to register this domain for you,
we register this domain in your name, not ours,
we design the website for you, and
we will make scheduled changes for you.

You'll pay the same amount of money just to have a hosted domain in many places. It's not hard to do the math and see why we're such a great bottom line asset to your business.

We have other services for existing businesses, as well. It's hard to beat the service of:

www.myklin.com

Maintained Website Services

2005-06-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Maintained Website Services
For many beginners on the Internet, the Search Engines should be the way to get visitors to the new websites. Unlike paid inclusion techniques you don't have to pay to get your site in front of the thousands of searchers looking for your products. With designing for "organic results" your site can rise in the rankings and be shown to people who want your products.

After 2 years of getting page 1 unpaid Search Engine Results for ourselves, www.myklin.com now offers to do this for you. Even if you have millions of other websites competing for the same search terms it is very possible for your business to get the same attention by using our maintained website services.

We have competed for some hot terms simply to prove our techniques work. With almost 8,000,000 competing websites we are inside the top 10 natural results. We can show you this at www.maintained-website-services.com as well as much more information that will make a difference to your business.